Anniversary Hijinks: Doctor Who Women on the Radio

I suspect there are going to be a lot of Anniversary hijinks Doctor Who posts over the next two weeks. Today I woke up to discover that I was on Radio National yesterday! ABC presenter Cassie McCullach asked me to talk to her about the history of women in Doctor Who, and we pulled in two of my fellow Verities, Erika Ensign and Lynne M Thomas!

We talked about various female companions on the show, our favourites and our role models, and how the show has changed in its portrayal of women. Cassie also threw in the talking point that this year is the 50th anniversary of James Bond as a movie franchise too, and asked us to reflect on how different the portrayal of women has been across the two different series.

I don’t even now quite remember what we said because we recorded it a while ago, but I’m pretty sure that sex, sexism, screaming, equality, romance, heroism and feminism all got a look in. We also looked at what the Doctor and the male companions on the show offer as an alternate ideal of masculinity.

And of course we had so much fun! We talk about Doctor Who and women in the show pretty much every week on Verity, but having someone new to bounce ideas off is always cool. Thanks, Cassie, for giving us an opportunity to be part of the ABC’s massive Doctor Who celebrations.

You can download the episode here, and also check out the special digital channel that the ABC are running for the Doctor Who anniversary only. That page also gives you the Australian screening times for The Day of the Doctor – I’m going to be up at 6:50 to watch it with my kids! What about you?

EDIT: It will also be repeated on Sunday morning at 11am AEST on Radio National